


King Dream and the Weeping Scholar

by WinsomeEarl



Category: The Sandman (Comics)
Genre: Insomnia, One Shot, Other, endless sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 16:18:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23374663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinsomeEarl/pseuds/WinsomeEarl
Summary: A scholar strikes a deal with Morpheus so that he may live free of sleep for a while.
Kudos: 12





	King Dream and the Weeping Scholar

Traum of Mesmer, the weeping scholar, first monastic elder of the Messianic Temple of Nod, once grew tired and fitful in a life of pious and unvaried solitude.

Calling on the King of Dreams, Traum begged to never sleep, as with sleep came the fear that one's death would come before the culmination of one's work, with such a large percentage of one's time in the world spent locked in its grip. For Traum wrote on many subjects, in philosophy and theology and more, and wished not to perish before these new insights had been recorded.

With the weeping scholar's call, King Dream came to stand in the Temple's tower. Hearing the scholar's plight, King Dream, in his compassion, took a red poppy from his crown with long white fingers, and holding it out, spoke, "From this point, your mind will become my home, and your life will be split, like a day, into three parts. For two parts you will live, like the morning and the evening, entirely in your world, and for one part you will live, like the night, in mine. To which world you will flee after that, I cannot know. For now, this flower is nothing but a bud, and for the next third of your life you will never know rest, and so it will be for the third after that, as signaled by this poppy's bloom. But once that time passes, and this flower wilts, you will fall into a dream from which you will never wake in this life. That is my gift to you."

Once the flower was passed to Traum's hands, and once King Dream had fled, the deal was made. 

That night, Traum did not sleep, but instead wrote into the early morning, with the poppy hung from a chain under a nightshirt. And so it was for the next night, and the next, for 33 years until the morning that the poppy bloomed and for 33 years after that. Traum worked through day and through night without ever knowing sleep or even exhaustion. In time, the weeping scholar came to lament the inability to dream, but these periods of sorrow were short lived.

On the morning that the scholar's final manuscript was complete, the poppy wilted. It had been 66 years and a day since King Dream's departure, and when the temple's other inhabitants mounted the stairs to the top of the tower, all they found there was Traum's unmoving body, laid out as if in sleep for the first time in 66 years, with the wilted red bloom clutched tight in one hand.

Though Traum appeared to be in sleep, no heartbeat could be heard from within the scholar's chest, and Traum's skin soon grew cold. Not as cold, however, as the customary chill of death. For though no heart beat could be heard, movement could still be seen beneath Traum's closed eyelids, and the scholar's fist was clenched so tight that it would not release the flower in its grip, and in the days and months, and soon years to come, neither rot nor decay could be seen taking hold of the figure on the bed. At times, the dreamer appeared to be in a fitful sleep, and at others not. It went on like this for 33 years- there is no telling what sort of dreams might be had in such a span.

There was only one other present in the room when Traum woke for the final time. The scholar's hand, hanging as it was over the side of the bed, released its grip on the crushed poppy and let it fall to the floor, coming then to grasp the wrist of the room's other inhabitant. The scholar's eyes looked up into those of their visitor, and a sense of dread passed from one to the other before the scholar spoke, in a low voice, the words, "FEAR KING DREAM," before the two pale eyes closed once again, this time forever.

The figure on the bed seemed to fall into itself, and wilt, just as the poppy had, and with that, the weeping scholar finally knew death.


End file.
